


Inside Down, Upside Out

by emptydistractions, piglet_illustrations (thefilthiestpiglet)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Bucky Barnes, Body Horror, Body Modification, Body Worship, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Creepy Brock Rumlow, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gang Rape, HYDRA Trash Party, M/M, No Seriously Do Not Eat, Non-Consensual Body Modification, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Steve Rogers, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape/Non-con Elements, Top Steve Rogers, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:40:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23216398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emptydistractions/pseuds/emptydistractions, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefilthiestpiglet/pseuds/piglet_illustrations
Summary: “Look at yourself,” Rumlow said with a sneer. “Look how you let us use you. It’s all over your face, your body. It’s humiliating. They’ll be ashamed to let you be seen with them.”It's not a hard mission. Be the Winter Soldier again. Walk right back into Hydra's waiting arms, get the intel, and sneak out. Bucky's pretty sure he can do this.God, he hopes he can do this.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 21
Kudos: 129
Collections: MCU Kinkbang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Best kink collaboration EVER with [thefilthiestpiglet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefilthiestpiglet/pseuds/thefilthiestpiglet) for the MCU 2020 Kinkbang! Go check out their amazinggggg stuff. It was a blast to work on and I hope you like it! Please, please, please heed the tags!

Bucky was already awake and gone by the time Steve woke up.

It wasn’t much of a surprise. It had been six months since Bucky had come stumbling through Steve’s door. Three months since Steve had moved them both to Manhattan to live in Tony’s monstrosity of a building after Steve had grudgingly accepted that the best possible care he could get for Bucky would be there. In all that time, Steve had never seen Bucky sleep for more than a few hours; certainly he had never woken up before him.

The other side of the bed, the side that had unofficially become Bucky’s side was perfectly made; sheets folded and tucked with military precision, and pillows sitting just so. It was almost like he’d never slept there at all. Something in the cleanliness of it tore at Steve’s chest. Bucky had always been loud and messy, filling every part of every room that he entered; nothing like the quiet, gaunt ghost who haunted Steve’s apartment now.

To be honest, just the fact that Bucky was sleeping in a bed, regardless of whether it was Steve's or not, had Steve feeling more than grateful. When he'd first shown up, Bucky had insisted on sleeping on the floor, fully clothed and near the closest exit at all times. He'd eventually graduated from the floor to the couch, from the couch to his own bed, and then one night he'd knocked on Steve's door, settled down beside him, and that was that. He'd even stopped shrinking away from Steve like a wounded animal every time Steve got close enough to touch him. He was still sleeping in his clothes, but on the scale of things in their lives that mattered, shoes in their bed were the least of Steve's concerns. 

Slowly, Steve made his side of the bed, his mind racing with thoughts best left in the dark. He tried to do just that as he brushed his teeth and knocked back a perfunctory breakfast.

Jarvis greeted him when he entered the elevator. “Good morning, Captain Rogers.”

“Steve,” he reminded the AI.

“Of course,” Jarvis answered, the same way he always did. “The others have already convened in conference room C.”

“Thanks,” Steve said, suppressing a small sigh. He couldn’t even get Jarvis to warm up to him. What chance did he have with Bucky?

“And good luck today, Captain Rogers,” Jarvis spoke one last time as Steve exited the elevator.

 _Good luck._ The words rumbled through him like a thunderstorm. Good luck. They could all use a bit of good luck right now. His problems with Bucky aside, Pierce’s mess had been proving harder to mop up than they ever expected, and the entire team was stretched close to the breaking point. As if the universe found some sort of perverse pleasure in proving its point, the team was already arguing as he entered the conference room.

“It’s not just a simple matter of firepower, Tony, it’s-”

“Well at least it’s a better plan than pretending we’re invisible and _sneaking up_ on-”

“I never said that we’d-”

“That’s exactly what you-”

“Steve!” Clint’s greeting was loud, and everyone turned to look as Steve shut the door behind him. “Oh thank God, please come in here and break them up. I hate it when mom and dad fight.”

Neither Tony nor Natasha seemed particularly amused by Clint’s attempt at a joke, but at least they stopped arguing and sat back. Steve quickly surveyed the room. The entire team was there except for Thor. Bruce, who as usual looked like he’d just pulled several all-nighters in a row, was sitting next to Clint at the head of the table, who in turn was leaning dangerously back in his chair. Natasha and Tony, still both clearly keyed up and ready to restart their argument, sat across from each other, arms crossed and postures tense.

Finally, Steve’s gaze stopped on Bucky. Although he was of a similar height to Steve, he seemed to almost shrink back in his chair, his seat conveniently located at the corner of the table, his back to two walls and the exit in clear sight. He was stock still, having not moved so much as an inch during all the commotion, and his eyes hadn’t left the table once.

Steve tried not to be disappointed when Bucky didn’t even look up at him. “No Thor?”

“Something came up at home,” Bruce said with a small shrug. “He said something about Loki and took off.”

“And in other news, water is wet,” Tony said under his breath.

“Don’t be an ass, Tony,” Bruce said.

“Oh, but didn’t you know that’s his favorite pastime?” Natasha interjected, voice saccharine sweet and sarcastic.

Clint groaned in frustration and thumped his head down onto the table. As Natasha and Tony resumed sniping at each other, Steve eyed the rest of the team. Bruce looked as exasperated as Clint, and Bucky still hadn’t looked at any of them. Steve bit the inside of his cheek, contemplating, before pulling out a chair close to Bucky and out of the current firing zone.

“Did we get any new intel?” he asked as soon as he was settled.

“Only what we already knew,” Tony answered. “The only way we’re getting that list is if we get our hands on that USB drive.”

“Which is still conveniently located in Hydra’s only remaining, heavily fortified base,” Nat finished.

“I didn’t think Hydra even had enough people left after the mess in D.C. to have a ‘heavily fortified’ _anything_ ,” Bruce said.

“Believe me, they do,” Clint replied, suddenly grim. “They’ve concentrated their people and left everything else empty. Don’t bother asking around, I’ve already checked.”

“Do we have a way in?” Steve asked.

“Several,” Bruce responded, speaking before Tony or Natasha had a chance. “None of them good.”

“Since when is an overwhelming show of force a bad idea?” Tony shot back.

“Since _always_ ,” Natasha snapped. “It won’t take them long to figure out what we want, and once they do, it’ll only take them a few seconds to destroy the intel. Once they do that, the whole thing will’ve been for nothing.”

“Not to mention,” Clint added with irritation, “that they’re using a building in the middle of downtown. Worst comes to worst, we already know these guys have zero qualms about taking half a city block down with them.”

“He’s right. So is Nat,” Bruce said with a sigh. “Sorry Tony, but I don’t think storming the castle is going to work this time.”

Steve nodded, agreeing with Bruce’s assessment. Any option that unnecessarily risked civilian lives wasn’t an option at all. “What else have we got?”

“Covert ops.” Tony scoffed as Natasha spoke. She pointedly ignored him as she pushed a piece of paper across the table towards Steve. At first glance, they looked like building plans, and they’d been heavily marked with handwritten notes and arrows. “I’ve figured out a way that gets us inside without being seen. From there-”

“ _From there_ ,” Tony interrupted her, “the second we show our very lovable and televised faces, they blast us all to kingdom come. If we’re lucky. Worse if we aren’t.”

Steve dropped the paper and scrubbed a hand over his tired eyes. It was times like these when he missed the simplicity of an alien invasion. At least _they_ were predictable. See an alien, shoot an alien. None of this backdoor, undercover planning involved.

“What about someone on the inside?” Clint suggested. “We could plant someone.”

Steve considered the idea for a moment before shaking his head. “Wouldn’t work. The only people I’d be willing to send in would be one of us, and as Tony pointed out, we’re all a bit too recognizable.”

“The big guy?” Bruce asked with a wince, like he was already regretting saying anything.

Natasha shook her head. “We’d be scrubbing green off the streets for weeks.”

“Damnit,” Steve muttered as he flipped through the documents on the table. The words swam in front of his eyes as he tried to concentrate. He’d thought of little else since yesterday when Clint had first delivered the news. None of them had, and they were no closer to a solution than when they’d first started. “We need that list,” he said. “Without those names…”

“Hydra keeps rebuilding with all the money and protection they could ever ask for thanks to their… ‘private backers'," Clint said bitterly. 

“Yeah,” Steve said with frustration.

“Believe me, Steve,” Nat sighed. “I want to expose those cowards for who they are just as much as you do. But we can’t do it without a plan that gets us in, gets us the information, _and_ gets us back out safely. Maybe if only one-”

“Too dangerous,” Steve dismissed the idea immediately. “We need something better, we’ve just got to-”

“I’ll do it.”

For a second, everything was quiet and still. And then…

“I’ll do it,” Bucky repeated. His voice was flat, emotionless, but at least he was looking up now, even if he still wasn’t meeting anyone’s eyes.

Steve couldn’t quite get his brain and his mouth to sync up, but eventually he managed to spit out, “What? You’ll do what?”

“I’ll get the intel you need.”

All eyes were now on Bucky, and he almost seemed to fold in on himself for just a moment, before sitting straight, shoulders tense and mouth in a thin line. His fingers, resting on the tabletop, clenched and unclenched in a silent rhythm, the metal creaking in his prosthetic arm.

“I can get in,” he said. “They’re looking for me. For the Soldier. They’ll let me in.”

Silence once again filled the room as Bucky’s words sunk in, interrupted only by the insistent buzzing of the overhead lights. Or maybe the buzzing was only in Steve’s ears. It was impossible to tell.

“That could work.” Natasha was the one to speak first. “We send you in as the Winter Soldier. You’ve been there, right?” Bucky nodded, and she continued, “So you know the place better than we do.”

“With the right tech, we could track you,” Tony jumped in. “You could get closer than any of us. They wouldn’t even know you’d taken it.”

“No need to raise an alarm,” Clint said.

“No muss, no fuss,” Bruce added.

“I’ve got a dermal implant that I’ve been developing.” Tony sounded almost excited now. “I could make adjustments. Make it so that we can talk to you the entire time without any visible mic for them to find. Why didn’t I think of this before?” he muttered to himself as he flipped furiously through pages on his tablet, already absorbed in his work.

“Maybe because _you_ were too focused on explosions and-” Natasha started to say.

“ _No_.” Steve’s voice surprised even himself. He hadn’t been aware of making the decision to speak, much less what he was going to say. Everything was suddenly too loud and too bright and moving too fast, like a movie on double speed. “No. We’re not doing that.”

Bucky was back to looking down at the table like he couldn’t hear a word any of them were saying.

“Why?” Tony said, his tone clearly implying he was bothered that he even had to ask in the first place. “We outfit him with my tech, he plays creepy murderbot for a few hours, and we get the information we need to pull the rug out from those Hydra assholes for the last time.”

Steve could feel his stomach twisting into knots in his stomach. “Even if it were that simple, we’re not- _I’m_ not okay with sending him back to Hydra. Not after- No. I refuse.”

“Steve,” Clint said gently. “It’s the only plan we’ve considered that might even have a chance of working.”

“I don’t care!” Steve knew he sounded emotional. _Good_. He was. “We’re not doing it.”

“Oh, but you were fine with it when it was us risking our lives,” Tony said, raising an eyebrow.

“Back off Tony,” Steve said sharply. He looked around the table, trying to see if they’d all lost their minds or just Tony. “Bruce,” he said. “You can’t agree with this.”

Bruce hesitated, and that told Steve all he needed to hear. “It’s not the worst idea-”

“This is unbelievable.” Steve threw his hands up. His blood was getting hot, his body gearing up for a fight. “This-”

“Hey, Steve.” Natasha’s voice was clearly annoyed. “Were you at any point planning to ask, oh I don’t know, _Bucky_ how he feels about this?”

Natasha’s arms were crossed over her chest, her lips pursed into an irritated expression. It felt a bit like being scolded by a school teacher. Steve froze. “I-”

“Or do you just make unilateral decisions for this team now?”

“Bucky,” Steve turned in his chair to look at him. Unconsciously, he reached a hand toward him and Bucky jerked back like he’d touched a hot stove. Something in Steve’s chest ached. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

Natasha took over when Steve faltered. “Are you sure?” she asked him.

Bucky swallowed hard, his hands now gripping the edge of the table. There was a loud crack as the wood split, but he barely seemed to notice. “No,” he said finally. “But I’m going to do it.” He looked up as he said the last part, finally meeting Steve’s eyes.

“What if-” Steve began.

“We’ll make sure it doesn’t,” Tony said, far more gently than Steve would have expected out of him. For once Tony seemed to read the mood of the room.

“No,” Steve insisted. “This is important. You say you’re sure Bucky, but have you really thought this through? What if we get you in but we can’t get you back out? What if there’s something we missed? There’s a thousand things that could go wrong here.”

“There’s a thousand things that could go wrong every time you go out on a mission,” Bucky argued. There was a spark about him now, something firm and decisive lighting up his face. “But you do it because you have to. Because it needs to be done. And this is something I can do, so either get on board or get out.”

Clint raised an eyebrow and whistled. “You heard him Cap.”

“It’s my choice, Steve,” Bucky continued. His voice was low now, pitched for Steve alone even though everyone could hear it. “ _Mine_. Please, don’t you try to take that away from me too.”

Steve felt hot shame flood his cheeks, but he kept his head up as he nodded. “Fine,” he managed as he turned back to the rest of the team. He couldn’t look at Bucky anymore. This felt like sending him straight back into hell. “How are we gonna do this?”

“First,” Tony started, “we-”

“Wait.”

Bucky spoke again before the conversation could continue. There was something different about him this time Steve thought as he turned towards Bucky. He seemed nervous, cagey. All of the controlled quiet was gone. His eyes, which had been so steady before, now darted to and fro, unable to focus on anything for longer than a few seconds. His metal fingers tapped the wooden tabletop, the muffled staccato keeping time with his suddenly short and shallow breathing.

“If I do this...” Bucky continued after a moment. His voice held the slightest hint of a tremor. He stopped and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. When he opened them again and spoke, the tremor was gone. “If I go in, there are things that we need to… things we need to get if we want them to believe I’m the Soldier.”

“What are you talking about?” Clint’s voice cut through the tension that suddenly filled the air.

Bucky swallowed hard. His eyes had stopped their wild movement, but he still seemed incapable of looking any of them in the eye, instead keeping his gaze solidly on the floor. His long hair swung in a tangled curtain across his face.

“There’s some things we have to fix. Things they’ll be expecting. Parts of me.”

Steve still didn’t understand. A quick check of the faces around him indicated that no one else did either. The silence was unbearable as they waited for Bucky to speak again. Steve was suddenly, horribly aware of his own heartbeat, the whoosh of blood in his ears.

“Bucky-” he started, only to clam up again at the sudden screech of metal-on-metal as Bucky shoved his chair back from the table and stood. Steve was up on his feet in an instant, body already moving towards the exit, ready to run after Bucky if he bolted.

Bucky didn’t run. Instead, he did near the opposite, planting both feet firmly on the ground, like he was looking for stability, for something to ground him. Steve knew the feeling. Ignoring what was going on around him, Bucky reached hesitantly toward the hem of his shirt, fingers tangling in the material as he paused. His eyes were closed again, his mouth moving minutely, hair covering his expression as he fought some internal battle with himself. And then, in one fluid motion, Bucky gripped the fabric and pulled it upwards, revealing a long torso. He was skinnier than Steve ever remembered him being, even back in Brooklyn when they hadn’t had the money to pay the rent and still eat. And so pale. There was something else unfamiliar there too, something…

_Oh._

Steve felt his mind grind to a halt, like someone had thrown the emergency brake on a speeding train. He thought he might have made a noise, shock or surprise maybe. His voice didn’t feel like his own, nor did his lips or his lungs. His body was foreign, his mind reeling as he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing, couldn’t figure out why he was seeing it, and that was okay, because as long as he didn’t understand, it didn’t have to be real, and he didn’t want it to be real, would give anything for it not to be real _please God don’t let it be real..._

Bucky’s bare torso was littered with marks. Scars, old and puckered, decorated his skin like some kind of obscene abstract art; an indelible, undeniable sign of bright red blinking letters that screamed _‘Hydra was here’_. Steve looked because he had no choice. He couldn’t have turned away any more than he could’ve stopped the pounding of his heart..

At the junction where Bucky’s metal arm met the flesh of his shoulder, vicious, raised scars radiated outward like a sunburst. The damaged tissue was drawn up tight into furrows that stood out starkly against Bucky’s normal skin. Everywhere the metal touched was rimmed in red; the skin raw from rubbing against something hard and unyielding.

Steve’s eyes burned as he blinked hard, his vision going in and out of focus. There were other marks besides the scars surrounding the metal arm. Small circles dotted Bucky’s chest, no rhyme or reason to the pattern of them. Something had made a ring around his neck, something that had left the skin brown and bubbled in its wake.

Steve’s gaze traveled downward of its own accord, following Bucky’s scars like a map, pulling him along whether he liked it or not, and he most certainly did not. Bucky was breathing hard, his chest moving in and out with each breath, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy. Steve wanted to reach out for him to help him, to comfort him, to lock him away where he could never get hurt again, but that was impossible. He couldn’t do any of that because Bucky wasn’t interested. He’d shown Steve time and time again since he’d come to the tower that he didn’t even want Steve to touch him.

As Bucky’s chest heaved like a bellows, something silver glinted in the overhead light. Steve’s eyes were drawn immediately back to the rings that pierced Bucky’s nipples. They were bigger than any piercings he’d seen before, the metal thick and strong. There was more metal too, large, round pieces that shone a dull silver, embedded deep into Bucky’s flesh. Steve saw one just above his waistband, at the jut of his hips, with a matching partner on the other side, and a third at the center of his sternum.

“What am I looking at here?” Tony spoke first. His voice was soft but firm, no hint of emotion to give away how he might be feeling. Steve doubted that he could remain as calm.

“Modifications,” Bucky said, shifting slightly on his feet before holding his position. He looked at Steve, their eyes meeting for just a fraction of second before Bucky quickly looked away. His cheeks were red and his voice held a tinge of something Steve identified with horror as shame. “Some of it, anyway.”

“Modifications for what?” Bruce spoke next, and Steve was suddenly immensely grateful for his team and their ability to ask the things that he couldn’t.

“Control. Humiliation. For fun.” Every word was like a bullet. “For whatever Hydra wanted.”

Beside Steve, Natasha stood. She put a hand on his back, warm and firm and grounding, and Steve felt a little bit of himself come back. He was regaining control of his body bit by bit, though it still felt like his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth and his feet were still glued to the floor.

“What do you need from us?” she asked Bucky. Her tone was professional, like this was just business as normal, and Steve supposed that for her, maybe it was.

Her question breathed some sort of life back into the room. Planning was something Steve’s team knew how to do. Something Steve knew how to do. Everyone relaxed incrementally, some of the tension in the air gone as Bucky contemplated the question.

“A new mask.” Bucky said the word like it was a bad taste he was trying to get rid of.

Tony nodded quickly. “We have pieces of the one from D.C. We can have a new one ready in a few hours.” He looked at Bruce, who nodded in agreement.

“Chains,” Bucky continued. His breathing had returned to normal, his muscles untensing as he relayed the facts. Steve knew the feeling well. Focus on the mission and let everything else fall away. It was the phrase he’d lived by for years. “Three of them. Titanium, with clips on the end so they can connect.”

Tony’s brow was furrowed as he scribbled notes on a tablet. “How long should they be?” he asked without looking up from his writing. “Pure titanium or an alloy? The clips, could you draw them from memory? And-”

“Tony,” Bruce’s voice was soft as he cut in, silencing Tony’s out loud train of thought. He turned to Bucky, a questioning look on his face. “Bucky, what are they for? It’ll be easier for Tony and I to make them right if we know what we’re doing.”

Bucky’s mouth worked for a moment before he answered. “A leash,” he finally said. “For Hydra’s attack dog. They’d attach it here.” He brought a hand to his chest, fingers hovering over the ring that pierced his right nipple. The skin around it was dark. Steve hadn’t noticed it before; he’d been too focused on the ring itself. Small scars layered over top of each other, like a wound that had been ripped open again and again. “And here,” Bucky said as he moved on to the ring on his left.

There was a hard knot in Steve’s stomach, and his ribs were too tight around his lungs. He wanted to speak, to say something, _anything_ , but his throat constricted around the words even as he struggled to make his dry mouth move in sync with his brain. He watched in silence as Bucky’s hand moved down to the waistband of his pants, his fingers easily opening the button.

“And here,” Bucky said as he pushed his pants down past his hips. A trail of dark hair led from his belly button to the base of his cock, which hung soft between his legs, the skin velvet and dusky pink. At the tip, something glinted silver. Another thick ring pierced the head of his cock. This one was also surrounded by a ring of scars, like it had been ripped out and replaced.

Quickly, Bucky pulled his pants back up around his waist, hiding his cock from view. There was a blush creeping up his neck, spreading across his chest and turning it from pale to pink. Just like before, Bucky didn’t seem able to meet their eyes.

“Is that enough information?”

Tony nodded, his face tipped down towards his tablet, expression hidden. Bruce wasn’t quite so shy about how he felt, his expression a horrible mix of pain and pity as he spoke. “Yes, that’s enough. Is there… is there anything else we need to know.”

“Eye-bolts.” Bucky sounded utterly exhausted. He touched the metal embedded in his hips and sternum. “Big enough to fit these. Thick enough to use as an anchor for chaining up a person.”

“Can we take a break?” Clint looked vaguely green and slightly nauseous. He looked how Steve _felt_. “For a few hours or the rest of the day? I need a fucking break.”

Bucky looked so relieved he was on the edge of crying.

“Yes. Yes, that’s...A break.” Steve finally, _finally_ found his voice. “That’s a good idea.” _God_ , he needed a break. He was too hot and too cold all at once. The collar of his shirt was damp with sweat and his eyes stung. Every muscle in his body ached, and he felt like he hadn’t slept in a year.

The words had barely left his mouth before Bucky was rushing past him and out the door, pulling on his shirt as he went. Around him, Natasha, Bruce, and Clint spoke quietly, their murmuring voices blending with the sound of Tony muttering to himself as he poured over his notes. Steve could barely hear them over the rushing in his ears as he stared at the door through which Bucky had just disappeared. His thoughts were a jumbled mess, images of Bucky’s body painted across his eyes, Bucky’s words echoing in his head. It was too much. He couldn’t even find it in himself to be horrified. That would come later, he was sure. For now he was just… tired.

“Steve.” Natasha’s voice was sharp, and it cut through the mental fog like a knife. She cocked her head at the door, an almost exasperated look on her face, before turning back to her conversation.

The movement spurred Steve into action, and he nearly took the hinges off the door as he threw it open. _Bucky_. Steve needed to see him, needed to… for a moment his footsteps slowed. What exactly was he planning to say to Bucky that he hadn’t already said a million times over in the last few months. That he understood? Because he didn’t. The kind of cruelty that Hydra had put Bucky through was beyond understanding. That he was sorry? He was, but it wasn’t his to be sorry for. Everything he considered seemed weak and placating and false.

“Jarvis,” Steve said as soon as the elevator doors opened. “Where’s Bucky?”

“Sergeant Barnes is currently in your apartment, Captain Rogers. Should I take you there as well?”

“Please.”

The elevator hummed to life under his feet and Steve slumped against the wall. His mind was whirling round and round again, unable to hold onto a single thought long enough to figure anything out. And above it all, loud and insistent, the singular, overwhelming need to _get to Bucky_. The doors on the elevator had barely opened before Steve was pushing past them, a hurried walk that turned into a full-on run as he approached his own apartment door.

The door was unlocked. Not that it mattered. Steve would have opened it all the same. The _bang_ of the doorknob bouncing off the wall behind it echoed in the air as Steve stopped cold, frozen in the entryway.

Bucky was there, standing opposite him. It was dark in Steve’s apartment, and Bucky’s face was hidden in shadow, his head down and hair obscuring his eyes again. As Steve stepped forward, light from the hallway sliced through air, lighting Bucky up like a spotlight, highlighting the sharp angles of his nose and jaw, and catching little wisps of hair to form a halo around his head.

Steve took another step closer, the door swinging shut behind him and plunging the room back into darkness. Another step forward and another as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Bucky didn’t move, didn’t even look up as Steve approached. Only when they were inches apart did Steve stop. He moved gingerly, breathing lightly, afraid that anything else might break whatever fragile moment this was. This was the closest Bucky had ever allowed Steve- _anyone_ \- to get.

“So now you know.” Bucky’s voice was soft, barely discernible above the hum of the air conditioner and the ringing in Steve’s own ears. 

Steve nodded. They were close; closer than they’d been in ages. He could feel the warmth of Bucky’s breath on his face, could see every twitch of muscle as Bucky watched him from behind tangled strands of hair. Every cell in Steve’s body buzzed with anticipation, eager to fall back into the familiar circle of Bucky’s arms. But he held himself still, scared that too much movement might break the fragile peace between them.

Bucky tilted his head up, hair falling away from his face. His blue eyes were cautious, and his breathing was quick. “I know it’s bad. I… I never wanted you to have to see.” Bucky’s cheeks flushed, and Steve saw that same look in his eyes that he had had up in the conference room. _Shame_.

A horrifying thought formed itself in Steve’s mind; a single crystal moment of clarity that threatened to shatter him. “Bucky,” he said, voice dropping to a near whisper. “Have you been… this entire time?”

“I didn’t want you to see,” Bucky repeated, _and yes, there was shame there in his eyes and that wasn’t right wasn’t right at all and Steve had to, he had to..._

Steve swallowed hard, tears pricking at the backs of his eyes. “Was it… did I do something to make you think-”

“No,” Bucky cut him off firmly. “No, you’ve been…” He managed a little half smile that did nothing to make either of them more cheerful. “You’ve been exactly who you’ve always been. But I’ve changed.” Bucky looked down at his own body and Steve saw his jaw clench. “They changed me.”

“Bucky, I don’t care.”

Bucky’s head snapped back up, surprise on his face.

“And I’m sorry if I ever made you think otherwise. But I want _you_. I don’t care what package it comes in.”

“Steve, I don’t…” Bucky’s bottom lip was bitten bloody, and he trailed off as Steve reached up to swipe at the blood with his thumb.

“Can I prove it to you?” Steve asked, thumb pressing lightly at the corner of Bucky’s lips. They were staring at each other, Bucky’s eyes bluer than Steve remembered, and they were locked on Steve’s.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Bucky nodded. Steve’s hand moved from Bucky’s lips to cup the angle of his jaw, tilting his head upwards. Bucky followed willingly, and Steve kissed him, swallowing down Bucky’s soft noise of surprise. Steve could taste the copper-metallic tang of Bucky’s blood on his tongue, and Bucky’s lips were rough beneath his. Steve pulled at Bucky’s jaw, dragging him in closer, kissing him harder, like he could erase all the damage Hydra had done with the force of his lips alone.

Both of Steve’s hands dropped down to grasp at the hem of Bucky’s shirt, tugging the fabric upwards until Bucky got the message and lifted his arms, allowing Steve to slide the shirt off of him. The apartment was still dark, but Steve’s eyes had adjusted to the low light, and he could see every detail of Bucky’s chest in aching detail; the scars and the marks and the metal. It made tears prick at his eyes again and anger started to boil deep in his belly, but he pushed both of those feelings aside. Right now had to be about Bucky and Bucky alone.

Steve’s hands went to Bucky’s waist to rest there as his lips slipped off of Bucky’s. Slowly, Steve kissed his way down Bucky’s neck, stopping every so often to suck at the skin, leaving his own marks on Bucky to rival the ones Hydra had forced on him. He stopped when he reached the band of thick scar tissue around Bucky’s neck, his lips ghosting over the twisted pattern.

Bucky’s head was tipped back, so he spoke softly to the ceiling, but Steve heard him all the same. “Shock collar. One of the handlers, I can’t remember when, maybe the 70s, he liked to turn the voltage up until it burned.”

Steve pressed a gentle kiss to Bucky’s damaged skin, his hands grasping tight at Bucky’s waist. When he’d kissed as much of the scar as he could reach, he dropped down further until he reached a cluster of small marks, clustered together, each about as big across as a straw.

Bucky was still looking up. Steve watched as something shimmered at the edge of Bucky’s eyelids and he blinked hard before saying, “’54. I was off ice most of that year. There was a tech. Needed somewhere to put out his cigarettes.” His voice was bitter.

Steve kissed the burn marks. His mind had slipped into someplace quiet, all his rage and anger at the people who had done this to Bucky walled off to visit again later when he could do something about it. Whatever he ended up doing, he hoped it would hurt. Badly.

He reached the small, round piece of metal next. It looked like it had been hammered into Bucky’s sternum. On closer inspection, Steve realized there was more to it than he’d first realized. There were raised metal threads on the inside, like something was meant to screw in. Steve’s thumbs brushed Bucky’s hips where he could feel the two matching pieces.

Bucky hesitated this time, and as far as Steve was concerned, anything that made Bucky pause like that was never good. “Anchor points,” he finally said, clearing his throat. “They go down to the bone. They would attach restraints there when they didn’t have me on ice. It’s a lot easier to keep a person from trying to run when they’ve got such… personal incentive not to pull at the chains.”

Steve’s fingers clenched, gripping Bucky so hard he was probably leaving bruises, but Bucky stayed quiet. Steve was finding silence harder this time. _Bucky_ , he reminded himself. _This is about Bucky. He lived it. The least you can do is listen._

The skin around the edge of the metal arm was as red and raw as it had looked upstairs. Steve made the purposeful decision to leave it alone for now. He’d have to convince Bucky to let Tony and Bruce take a look at it soon. He doubted the arm had been designed for comfort, and he doubted that Tony had ever met a piece of tech he couldn’t improve.

Steve brushed his lips over one nipple ring, and then the other. Bucky inhaled sharply at the touch but didn’t speak. He’d already explained what these were for, and it didn’t bear repeating twice. Steve lowered himself slowly to his knees in front of Bucky. When he was settled, kneeling, hands firmly grasping Bucky’s hips, he tilted his head up, waiting, as Bucky took a deep, shuddery breath and looked down, meeting Steve’s eyes. His face was open, or maybe Steve was just remembering how to read it better. Steve cocked his head, silently seeking approval, and Bucky nodded, his metal fingers working his pants open deftly and pushing them down his hips as Steve watched, rapt.

Bucky’s cock was already half-hard when he freed it from the fabric. As Steve brushed his lips across hot skin, it swelled further. The ring through the head was dull silver in the low light, thick and menacing. Steve wasted no time in opening his mouth, taking in the head of Bucky’s cock, happy to make the ring disappear from sight. Above him, Bucky gasped, the sound loud in the quiet apartment. Steve mouthed idly at the slit, salty precome gathering on his tongue. The ring was cold, but it warmed rapidly in Steve’s mouth.

Steve flicked his tongue again against the slit, reveling in the breathy _‘oh’_ it produced above him. He felt a hand come down on the top of his head; uncertain, tentative movements. Steve responded to the touch by taking Bucky in further. He smiled around Bucky’s cock as the hand on his head tightened, gripping the strands of hair until it was just this side of painful.

Pleased, Steve returned the gesture by curling his tongue around Bucky’s cock while he sucked, forcing himself to take Bucky in even further. Steve nearly gagged as Bucky’s hips moved in a shallow thrust. He hadn’t done this in so long. It was a struggle to maintain his composure with Bucky’s cock bumping at the back of his throat, but the low moan that rumbled through Bucky’s chest was more than worth the discomfort.

Bucky’s hand gripped harder, pain stinging across Steve’s scalp, but all it did was spur Steve on. He hummed happily around Bucky’s cock, giving it a hard suck as he used the tip of his tongue to play with the metal ring, making Bucky gasp. He could feel the tension in Bucky’s body, the barely restrained desire to thrust into Steve’s mouth. Just the thought of Bucky fucking his face had Steve hard and dripping.

“Steve,” Bucky panted, his breath coming short and fast. “Steve, please, _please, ah-ah-ah!_ ”

He was babbling, his body practically vibrating beneath Steve’s hands, and Steve knew he was right on the edge. He hollowed out his cheeks and swallowed, letting Bucky’s cock rub against the roof of his mouth and the back of his throat. Bucky moaned, and Steve swallowed around him again, and again, and then Bucky was grabbing for Steve’s shoulders, bent forward as his hips jumped of their own accord. His cock pulsed in Steve’s mouth and he came, hard and hot, down Steve’s throat. Bucky made a broken noise as Steve swallowed him down, the sweat-sweet-salt taste of Bucky on his tongue. Steve worked him through his orgasm, curling his tongue around the head of Bucky’s cock as he continued to come.

When it was over, Bucky was left shaking. His rapidly softening cock slipped from Steve’s mouth. Steve caught the metal ring with his teeth so he could give the head a final flick of his tongue. Bucky inhaled sharply above him and Steve smiled to himself. Bucky had always been sensitive after coming, so overstimulation was easy. That much, at least, had not changed. With great care, he tucked Bucky’s cock back into his underwear and refastened Bucky’s pants around his waist. All the while, he could hear Bucky’s shuddery breathing gradually slowing and evening out as he regained control of himself.

Steve stood, his knees slightly protesting their time on the hard tile. Before Bucky could say anything, Steve leaned forward and wrapped him in a kiss. There was something slower about this one, something sweeter. Bucky’s mouth opened to him with no prodding as they deepened the kiss. Bucky’s hair tickled Steve’s cheek, but there was no chance of Steve pulling away, not for anything.

“Good?” Steve murmured, pulling back just far enough to speak, his lips still brushing Bucky’s.

Bucky huffed in amusement, and Steve could have sworn he felt Bucky smile. “Fast,” he said. “It’s… been a long time.”

Steve kissed him again. “I think we can work on that.” He paused. “If… if that’s something you want.”

He felt Bucky’s arms encircle him, metal and flesh digging hard into Steve’s back. “Is it something you want?”

“Yes.” This time Steve did pull back, far enough away that he could look into Bucky’s eyes. “I told you, I want _you_. And I don’t care if we never do anything physical again. I’ll be happy as long as you’re part of my life again.”

Bucky exhaled slowly as he nodded, and Steve hugged him tighter. He didn’t know how long they stayed like that. There was no sense of time in the darkened apartment, just him and Bucky and the elation bubbling in Steve’s chest. He could only hope that Bucky felt the same. There were still things ahead of them; the mission, for one, and Steve’s stomach twisted at just the thought of it.

As if Steve’s thoughts had summoned him, Jarvis spoke into the hushed room. “Captain Rogers. Mr. Stark and Ms. Romanov are requesting your quick return to the conference room. Sergeant Barnes as well.”

He immediately felt Bucky go tense in his arms. But then he let out a purposeful and measured breath, and then another, relaxing his body incrementally every time. Steve envied that kind of control. His own lungs felt like they were being squeezed tight in his chest.

“We should go.” Bucky spoke first.

Steve nodded, his mouth inexplicably dry again. He tipped his forehead against Bucky’s, reveling in the closeness of him before reluctantly pulling away. “Yeah,” he said. “We have plans to make.”


	2. Chapter 2

In reality, putting on the persona of the Winter Soldier again wasn’t nearly as bad as Bucky had thought it was going to be. 

It was _worse_. 

Bucky couldn’t stop staring. They were all laid out on the lab bench, everything that Tony and Bruce had produced. Mask. Leash. Bolts. Small, innocuous, little things. They were just objects. They couldn’t do anything to hurt him on their own. So he didn’t know why he couldn’t stop the chill from spreading through his bones at the sight of them. 

“Bucky?” Steve’s voice was soft, but insistent. “You alright?”

Bucky looked up. The rest of the team looked back at him, faces a very deliberate mix of purposefully blank. He got the distinct feeling it wasn’t the first time Steve had tried to get his attention. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m okay.” He was lying, but what else was new?

“Do they pass muster?” Tony asked as he cocked his head. Bruce stood silently, arms crossed and expression uncomfortable. Jesus, the two of them had _made_ the damn things, and even they seemed reticent to touch them. 

Bucky reached out, his fingers ghosting over the mask. He could already feel it, the suffocating weight of it on his nose and mouth, the way it rubbed his skin raw. He swallowed hard past the sudden lump in his throat and nodded. 

Tony closed his eyes for just a second before he composed himself; probably the most emotion he’d show, at least to his team. Bruce’s face creased in displeasure at a job well done. _Imagine that_ , Bucky thought. Hating a thing you’d made before it had even been used. But he couldn’t blame them. He hated it too. 

Natasha, as usual, was the savior, salvaging the moment before it could get any more tense. “Good job,” she said, nodding at Bruce and Tony. “Keep the lines open, in case there’s any issues.” 

“You got it,” Tony replied drily with a tone that clearly said it would be more likely for the earth to open up and swallow them all whole then for anything to go wrong with something he’d built. “Oh, don’t forget this.” He tossed something roughly the size and shape of a small stapler in Bucky’s direction. 

Bucky caught it easily, holding it up to inspect the object. His first instincts had been right on the money. It looked almost exactly like a stapler, and Bucky had a sneaking suspicion it functioned like one too. 

“Behind the ear,” Tony told him, tapping the indicated spot on his own head. “Flush against the skin and pull the trigger. You’ll be able to hear anything we broadcast. If you wanna speak to us, it’s touch activated. Just hold your finger over it and talk. We’ll hear you. Or, they will, at least.” He made a broad sweeping gesture with one hand to indicate the rest of the team.

“Thank you, both of you,” Steve said. Bucky was grateful. It wasn’t like it was their fault, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to say thank you for any of this. 

Tony gave Steve a cheeky salute, and then turned and gave one to Bucky as well. It was as close as he would get to wishing him good luck. Bruce, on the other hand, murmured a quiet _‘be safe’_ as he and Tony left to double and triple-check the comm lines. Clint chose to take his leave as well, blowing them all a cheerful kiss on his way out the door. Despite how cavalier Clint could be, Bucky still felt comfort knowing that he’d be out there watching over the mission, no doubt from some dizzyingly high perch.

That left just him, Steve, and Natasha. And the things still laid out on the lab bench, but Bucky was ignoring those as long as possible. 

“Are you ready?” Natasha asked. When Bucky nodded, she held out her hand, gesturing for him to hand over the device that Tony had given him. 

“I’d prefer to do it myself,” Bucky said quietly, rolling the small contraption over and over in his hands. He could see Steve tense up out the corner of his eye, and even though he longed to go bury himself in Steve’s arms and never let go, Bucky ignored him. He only had so much energy, and right now it all had to go towards the mission. Besides, if he faltered now, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to convince himself to do it again.

“Are you-” Steve stepped forward, reaching. 

“I want to do it myself,” Bucky said again, more forcefully. Steve stilled, and Bucky silently breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t know how to explain it to him. Steve, who’d volunteered his body, who’d had every chance to say no along the way. How could Bucky expect him to understand when he had no frame of reference for it? He’d never gone to sleep and woken up in a body he wasn’t sure was his. He’d never been held down while faceless men poked and prodded and cut, all under the guise of forward progress. 

Steve’s hands clenched at his sides, but he nodded all the same. Silently, Bucky took Tony’s device in his flesh hand, searching out the trigger mechanism with his finger. Sweeping his hair back with his metal hand, he found the position behind his ear that Tony had indicated, lined it up, and pulled hard in one fluid motion. There was a loud click and then a stinging pain. The skin smarted like he’d been stung by an insect. As he grit his teeth and shook his hair loose again, the pain started to subside. No matter how Bucky felt about Tony most days, he could at least admit that his inventions were kinder than Hydra’s.

Natasha waited until he’d put the now-empty mechanism down before she tapped at the device on her wrist that looked a little like a watch. As soon as she touched it, there was the loud screech of feedback in his ear and he jerked back involuntarily, trying to escape the noise. 

“Sorry, sorry,” she said, fiddling with the controls. “Better?” she asked, and this time Bucky heard her in his ear. The transmission was almost simultaneous, and the strange overlap of her voice in his ear even as she spoke next to him was slightly disorienting. He nodded. “Try it on your end,” she said. 

Bucky found the spot behind his ear where the skin was still giving him the occasional twinge of discomfort and pressed. “Testing,” he said, pleased to hear his own voice echo back at him from Natasha’s wrist. 

“Alright, good.” Natasha nodded her approval.

She made an aborted motion towards the lab bench and then paused. Steve was silent, looking anywhere but at Bucky, whose own mouth had suddenly gone dry as a desert. It seemed none of them liked what was next. _Well_ , he thought wearily, _no point in dragging it out_. 

He reached for the massive eye-bolts first, not quite ready to face the mask or the leash. The metal was cold in his hand, luted screw edges rough. He swallowed thickly as he contemplated the anchor point on his sternum. Skin had started to overgrow the edges of it, like his body was trying to cover up what Hydra had done. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the screw-end of the bolt into its anchor, twisting until the threads caught. There was a tiny, bright spot of pain as the skin surrounding it tore, unused to sharp edges. Tiny dots of blood welled up and dribbled down his abdomen as he continued to screw in the bolt. He gasped as it reached the part anchored into the bone. It was a pain he’d never gotten used to; a sickly, aching, low-grade pain that settled down deep into his chest. By the time the screw stopped turning, the eye-bolt firmly anchored, he had cold sweat beading the back of his neck. 

He looked at the bench top. _Four more to go_. Just the thought of it made him queasy. As he reached for the next bolt, a horrible thought formed in his mind, one that made him go cold and hot at the same time, and replaced the nausea in his gut with something akin to dread.

“I need help,” he said quietly. He kept his grip on the next bolt calm and steady, even if it wasn’t how he felt. “On my back. I… I can’t do those on my own.”

The look on Steve’s face was not unsimilar to a man who’d just been told he had 24 hours left to live. He looked sicker than Bucky felt, and there was a suspicious wetness to his eyes. Despite all that, he was still Steve, still the most reliable person Bucky had ever known, and true to his nature, he stepped up to grab one of the bolts. He looked at the piece of metal in his hand like it was something disgusting. 

Natasha was more composed as she snagged a bolt as well. Bucky shrugged out of his t-shirt. The one bright spot in all this, he supposed, was that at least his clothing choices were less limited now that he had nothing left to hide. A large, warm, calloused palm was laid at the base of his neck, steadying him as Steve studied the anchor point built into the top of Bucky’s spine. He could feel Natasha’s fingers, smaller and more delicate, down at the top of his tailbone, just above the waistline of his jeans. 

“On three?” Steve asked.

“Just do it,” Bucky said through gritted teeth. 

To their credit, neither of them argued. Bucky wasted no time in inserting the screw into the anchor point on his right hip, the burst of pain mirrored by the points on his neck and back like the sudden pop of firecrackers. He could feel the slightest tremor in Steve’s hand, but even so, Bucky found the heavy warmth of his palm comforting. Bucky was less hesitant, and finished quickly with his right hip before moving on to the left. He had finished both by the time Steve and Natasha were done with his back. That nauseating bone-deep throb rippled through his core, and he squeezed his eyes shut against what he knew would be the worst wave of it. He nearly jumped as someone laid a cloth to his back to soak up the few drops of blood that had spilled down his spine. 

“Bucky?” Steve’s voice was concerned. Bucky wanted more than anything to be the one to comfort _him_ this time, but he couldn’t stop yet. 

“I’m fine,” he said, carefully controlling his breathing as another wave of nausea rolled through him, smaller but no less disconcerting. “Leash,” he grunted. “And mask.”

Bucky’s eyes were still shut, but he could’ve sworn he heard the crack and pop of Steve’s knuckles. As it was, he could already feel the tenseness radiating off him in waves. In some sick kind of way, Bucky wondered if this might be harder on Steve than it was on him. Bucky had had decades to get used to, if not the pain, than at least the idea of it. Steve had had less than 24 hours. 

The nausea was taking longer to dissipate than Bucky would have liked, but he was determined not to throw up. He did, however, allow himself to sag against the nearest surface, using the edge of the table to hold the majority of his weight while he concentrated on the task at hand. 

“I’ve got it, Nat,” he heard Steve say quietly, followed by the rustling of chains. His body reacted to the sound unconsciously, his limbs trying to fold in and make him smaller, less of a target. 

“It’s just me Bucky.” Steve’s voice was now directly in front of him, soft and reassuring. “You can keep your eyes closed if you need to. You’re doing great.” 

And no, that wasn’t right, Bucky thought. He should be stronger than this, but even he couldn’t admit that the thought of someone else taking over, even if only for just a few seconds, wasn’t a massive relief. He felt Steve’s hands on him again, one massive palm delicately cradling one side of his chest as the other clipped a chain to the ring through Bucky’s right nipple. 

Thankfully, there was no pain associated with this part. Steve must’ve been supporting the weight of the chains, because there was no weight dragging at the rings either as Steve clipped the chain in place on the left nipple. He felt Steve hesitate, and Bucky really hoped he’d take his silence as consent, because he wasn’t sure he could handle a head nod right. Steve, it seemed, was on the same wavelength for once in their lives, and he carefully opened Bucky’s fly. Bucky felt Steve shift his body weight, and it took him a second to realize what was happening. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry as Steve pulled Bucky’s soft cock from his underwear and gently clipped on the remaining chain. Steve was trying to shield him, to cover him up. As if Bucky had any dignity left that Hydra hadn’t already taken. 

The worst of the nausea had finally passed, and Bucky opened his eyes just in time to catch Steve staring into them. Steve’s normally bright blues were clouded over with anxiety, and he looked close to the edge of tears. Silently, Bucky reached out with his flesh hand, swiping his thumb over the lovely sweep of Steve’s cheekbone, trying to instill all that he felt into that single touch. Without breaking eye contact, Steve caught Bucky’s hand in his, holding it to his cheek for just a second longer, and Bucky knew that Steve felt the same. 

Steve cleared his throat, letting go of Bucky’s hand. He held up the gathered end of the chains, all three connected to each other at one end, and to Bucky’s body on the other. Bucky shrugged out of his jeans, dropping them along with his underwear onto the ground. He forced himself to look straight into Steve’s eyes as Steve took the mask ( _the fucking mask_ ) and laid it carefully over Bucky’s mouth and nose. Tenderly, he pulled back Bucky’s hair to fasten the mask together at the back of Bucky’s neck. Each movement was slow and deliberate, designed to help, not to hurt, and Bucky couldn’t help but compare it to the way the mask had always been handled in the past, with no regard for the person underneath it. 

When Steve was done, he leaned back and inspected Bucky’s face, his mouth a grim line and his forehead creased with worry. Looking at Steve’s face, Bucky made a split-second decision. 

“Natasha,” he said, voice muffled by the mask. He held out the end of the chains in her direction. She stepped forward and took them from him. “We need to make sure they’re strong enough. You know better than anyone else how they are.”

Natasha gave him a curt nod, face deadly serious. Bucky hoped Steve understood, but this was something he just didn’t have the heart to ask Steve for. Bucky nodded back at her, giving her the go-ahead. She held the chains in one hand and pulled. The rings pulled Bucky’s nipples taut and dragged his cock upwards. Bit by bit, Natasha wrapped the chain around her hand, increasing the force on the chains. Bucky stood his ground, feet planted firmly as his nipples stretched and his cock was pulled further and further. 

“Okay,” he finally gasped out when he couldn’t take a second more. 

She immediately loosened the chains and the terrible pressure on his nipples and the head of his cock was relieved, although little aftershocks still smarted through him when he moved. He took the chains from her and wrapped them loosely around his waist, securing them to themselves in some kind of macabre harness. It was an inelegant solution, but it was how his handlers had always done it, and at least nothing was pulling uncomfortably. 

The last piece of his transition back to the Winter Soldier lay folded on a nearby chair. Tony and Bruce had done an excellent job restoring his old tactical gear and fabricating what parts weren’t salvageable. Frankly, Bucky was amazed they’d been able to save any of it. The gear had taken a beating on the helicarriers, and more so in the following weeks when he’d been too out of his mind to think about getting some new clothes. 

This part at least was easier. He’d suited up for a few missions in the past month. There had been a general reluctance among the team, some (Steve) more than others (Natasha), to let him work beside them so soon after, well… _everything_. But they had, and Bucky was forever grateful for the chance to get out of his head and do the things he’d always been good at, even before Hydra and the war and the fucking Winter Soldier. 

When he was fully dressed and kitted up, chains around his waist, bolts digging uncomfortably into his skin, mask hot and slightly suffocating, he looked at Steve and Natasha. Steve looked about two seconds from vibrating out of his own skin. His arms were crossed tight across his chest, jaw clenched, foot tapping out a fast rhythm on the tile. To his surprise, there seemed to be a crack in Natasha’s normally smooth veneer as she gave him a small half-smile. 

“You’re sure you’re ready for this?” she asked. 

Bucky nodded. “Now or never, right?”

Maybe never would have been a better choice. 

\---

The safehouse was exactly like Bucky remembered. It was less a house and more a crappy apartment in a rundown neighborhood, one where nobody would look twice at any strange comings and goings, or question the triple dead-bolted door and the cameras at the windows. So much had changed for Bucky in the last six months. The sight of the safehouse, a moment stuck in the time before Hydra had gone mostly belly-up, was familiar in a strangely comforting way. 

Exactly like Bucky had predicted, the place didn’t look like it had been used in at least a year. It had mostly been known to the higher-ups and a select few who worked with the Winter Soldier. Hydra had been like that. Secrets on top of secrets until no one could be sure of anything anymore. And exactly as Natasha had predicted, a well-timed rumor whispered to the right person that the Winter Soldier had been seen in the vicinity of the safehouse spread like wildfire, and it was only a few hours before agents were tearing down the door.

He heard them well before he saw them. Heavy booted footsteps echoed up the shoddily maintained stairwell and tramped down the hallway. Six… no, seven of them. None of them were speaking. Bucky could only assume they were using hand signals in a bid to take him by surprise. He didn’t blame them. After all, they had no idea what (or rather, _who_ ) exactly they were walking in on. The footsteps reached the door and stopped, followed by shuffling and the rustling of fabric as weapons were drawn.

 _Three_.

The noise stopped altogether and Bucky closed his eyes, steeling his resolve.

 _Two_.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He could do this. Everything would be fine and he’d be back in Steve’s bed by sundown.

 _One_.

The crash as the door was knocked off its hinges was thunderous, echoing through the entire apartment and bouncing off the paper-thin walls. Agents poured into the apartment, each decked out in heavy black tactical gear, and each holding a standard army-issue M4. Bucky held his composure, sitting calmly on the worn-out couch as he stared down the barrels of seven rifles. Part of him balked at the very idea of what he was about to do. He’d spent decades helpless under Hydra’s control, and the great irony of it was that now that he could finally fight back, he was about to willingly let them control him again. The thought of it made bile rise in the back of his throat, and he had to choke it down.

 _Don’t move_ , he reminded himself. He breathed deeply and tried to push his mind into that place, the one where he was nothing more than a thing. An object. A weapon. Something to be used and discarded at Hydra’s pleasure.

There were a tense few seconds where Bucky stared at the agents (or rather, at their guns), and the agents, bristling with tension, stared at Bucky. It reminded him of the time right before a lightning strike, when the hair prickled the back of your neck and the atmosphere itself seemed to shiver with expectation. Then, slowly, the lead agent held up a closed fist. _Stop_. The other agents relaxed the grip on their guns slightly, but they didn’t stop pointing them at Bucky’s head.

The lead agent took a cautious step forward and then another, until he was a few feet away from Bucky’s seat on the couch. Bucky could see the tremor in the man’s hands, so small it was almost imperceptible. There was sweat dampening his upper lip and following his hairline. Bucky bit back a morbid smile; it was nice to know that at least the Hydra grunts still had a healthy fear of him.

“Soldier?” The lead agent spoke cautiously, his eyes examining Bucky’s face. Bucky did his best to give him a placid, dull expression, his unfocused eyes making the man into a beige blur. “Soldier?” the agent tried again, this time snapping his fingers in front of Bucky’s face. He wondered how well the man would fare without fingers.

A collective sigh of relief seemed to sweep the room when Bucky didn’t react, even though the agents didn’t lower their guns, Bucky could read the release of tension in their bodies like a blinking neon sign.

“Everything seems within normal parameters,” the agent spoke into his earpiece, keeping a wary eye on Bucky, watching for any signs of movement. “It’s just sitting here. No evident damage. No weapons.”

He paused as someone spoke on the other end of the line, forehead wrinkling as he looked around the apartment.

“I’m not sure,” he finally replied. “Looks like it’s been here for awhile.”

Bless Natasha for her foresight. At her request, Clint had come the night before and made the place look lived in. The bed in the closet-sized bedroom was rumpled, sheets in disarray, and the tiny kitchenette was littered with dishes and takeout containers.

“Roger that,” the agent said after pausing again for instruction. He gestured to his men, who started to slowly circle the couch. “Bringing it in now.”

The confident tone he’d had on the radio didn’t quite translate to real-life, but Bucky wasn’t about to hold that against him. He’d seen bigger men have more than just shaking hands when dealing with the Winter Soldier. The leader nodded to one of the men who’d moved behind the couch.

“Up,” the man behind the couch ordered, jamming the barrel of his rifle up against Bucky’s neck. It jarred the newly placed bolt, and Bucky was grateful that the mask hid the swear that almost escaped him. “I said, up!”

Bucky complied as the Soldier would have, standing in a quick, silent motion and awaiting further direction. The leader cocked his head and two agents came from either side to grab Bucky’s hands, locking thick metal shackles around his wrists with an alarming efficiency.

“Let’s go,” the leader told his men. “Quietly. I want as little mess as we can manage.”

Bucky silently hoped that the residents of the building had common sense or just plain luck enough to stay out of the agents’ way. He knew far too well how Hydra handled ‘messes’.

The agents encircled him, guns at the ready, with barrels resting threateningly at the base of his neck or pointed at his temples. They ushered him quickly out of the apartment and down the hall. They were a good team, Bucky thought idly as they steered him down the stairs, through an emergency exit, and into an unmarked van behind the building. They worked together well, acting as a single unit instead of as individual men. There were never less than five pairs of eyes trained on him as they went, the other two dedicated to sweeping their surroundings.

Surveillance didn’t stop inside the van. Two agents took the front to drive while Bucky was pushed roughly onto one of the metal benches lining the back. Two more agents clamped another set of heavy shackles around his ankles, while the three remaining aimed their guns directly at his heart. It was too bad he couldn’t tell them he had no intention of trying to run. Probably would have saved them all the hassle of guarding him.

 _‘Bucky.’_ Steve’s voice was in his ear. _‘I know you can’t answer right now, so just listen. We saw them take you out of the building. Clint’s keeping an eye on the transport. Nat and I are headed to the base. We’re gonna keep eyes on you as long as we can, but once you’re inside, we’re blind. Send us a message if things start to go sideways.’_

There was a long pause. Across from him, one of the agents shifted and his gun jammed against the bolt in Bucky’s sternum, sending a wave of dull pain through his chest.

 _‘Bucky.’_ Steve’s voice was quieter this time, and something in it made Bucky ache in a way that had nothing to do with pain. _‘Please, be careful.’_

The line went dead, Steve’s words ringing in Bucky’s ear. Just hearing him bolstered Bucky’s resolve to see this thing through. When this was done, maybe they could finally bring down the rest of Hydra once and for all. When this was done, maybe he could finally rest.

The agents were mostly silent during the short drive from the safehouse to the last remaining Hydra stronghold. Another sign that they were a well-trained team. Bucky could only hope that they’d sent the best they had to recapture the Winter Soldier, and that the rest of the agents were more lax in their work. If not, he may be in for more trouble than he’d bargained for. The back of the van was windowless, lit only by internal fluorescents, but Bucky felt his ears pop. They were headed underground then. He brought up Natasha’s map in his head, tried to overlay it with what he remembered of the base. It was difficult; the times he’d been here hadn’t exactly been times when he’d been clear-headed.

Eventually, the van slowed and came to a stop. The lights in the back flickered off, and for a moment Bucky and the agents sat in darkness. Then, someone outside wrenched open the doors, and a bright industrial white light flooded in, burning Bucky’s eyes.

“Bring ‘em out!” someone commanded, and the agents fell into their old pattern, shepherding Bucky out of the back of the van and into a brightly lit area that looked a bit like an underground garage. There were other cars there; some parked, some idling, while men offloaded boxes of supplies.

Static crackled in his ear, and this time it was Natasha who spoke. _‘Steve and I are in position,’_ she said. _‘Clint’s covering the street, ready to evac any civilians if we need to. Radio when you can. We’ll be listening.’_

The transmission cut out as quickly as it had come. As soon as his feet hit the ground, Bucky took in everything he could. His eyes darted quickly as his mind worked in overtime, memorizing the layout, the people, the visible entrances and exits. Then, someone new spoke and Bucky stopped, making sure to slip back into a blank state.

“Goddamn,” the new person said, and something familiar sparked in Bucky’s brain. “I can’t believe you actually found it.”

“Wasn’t exactly a hard find.” The agents’ leader was speaking from somewhere behind Bucky’s back. “It was just sittin’ there. Didn’t put up a fight or nothin’.”

The other man whistled, long and low, and then finally, finally, moved into Bucky’s line of sight. Once again he was glad for the mask, as it hid the snarl of his lips. “Good job, boys,” said Rollins. “I’ll take it from here.”

“Just you, sir?” one of the agents spoke up. He sounded painfully young. “What about-”

“I got it,” Rollins assured him, eyes flashing dangerously despite the easy smile on his face. “Go take some time to yourselves. You all deserve it. And get these things off of it.”

There was movement around him as the agents removed the shackles from Bucky’s wrists and ankles. They then disappeared through a door that Bucky knew led further into the base, leaving him alone with Jack Rollins. Bucky couldn’t exactly say he was thrilled. To be completely honest, he’d been hoping that Rollins had died along with the rest of his team in the whole fiasco in D.C.

Unfortunately for Bucky, Rollins was alive and well and standing in front of him. Rollins was staring at him with an intensity of a horse breeder inspecting a broodmare. Bucky’s skin crawled as Rollins made a slow circle around him, looking him up and down with a pleased look in his eyes.

“Oh, he’s gonna be happy to see you,” Rollins said with a grin. He whistled again, and Bucky entertained the fleeting thought of stuffing his entire metal arm down Rollins’ throat. He’d like to see him try to goddamn whistle with Bucky’s fingers wrapped around his lungs.

“But you can’t go like that,” Rollins said to him, blissfully unaware of the bloody death Bucky was busy planning for him. “Soldier.”

Bucky forced himself to look Rollins in the eyes.

“Strip.”

On the list of indignities he’d suffered with Hydra, stripping naked barely registered. Hell, it wasn’t even the first time Bucky had been naked in front of people _today_ , but still, it stung his pride as he methodically removed each item of tactical gear and folded it into a neat pile. Folding his clothes had been one of Pierce’s additions; he had never been able to stand a mess. Bucky stood straight and tall in front of Rollins when he was done, naked save for the chains still wrapped around him.

“Unhook that and give it to me,” Rollins commanded. Bucky did so, unwinding the chains and passing them off to Rollins. He used his flesh hand, and when Rollins’ fingers brushed his, Bucky felt the intense urge to boil his hand when this was all over. “Now come on.”

That was all the warning Bucky got before Rollins tugged cruelly on the leash. The sudden and harsh movement was nothing like the slow, steady pressure Natasha had applied that morning, and Bucky bit down hard on his tongue to stop himself from making noise. _The Soldier doesn’t scream_ , he reminded himself as his mouth filled with the copper tang of blood.

He could feel people staring as Rollins led him through the door and into the base proper. To take his mind off of the stinging, pricking pain in his nipples and cock, Bucky threw himself into a tactical mindset. He noted everything as they passed; doors, branching hallways, air vents, the sight and sound and smell of everything they passed. Anything that would help him find his way out.

He was doing fine until, without warning, Rollins gave a vicious yank on the leash. There was a bright flash of pain in his chest, agonizing, and then he heard one of the chains hit the floor. The sound of it covered up the sound that was punched out of him involuntarily as Rollins whirled around to see what had happened. Bucky kept his eyes up, desperate to look but knowing that he couldn’t. The Soldier wouldn’t have looked and so neither could he. Besides, it wasn’t hard to figure out. There was blood pouring down the left side of his chest, and the pull of the chains suddenly felt lopsided.

Rollins inspected the damage with a disinterested look on his face. “Oops,” he said with a shrug, picking up the fallen chain. “Well,” he said to Bucky with a sick wink, “accidents happen.”

He turned, pulling on the remaining chains with renewed vigor. Without the stabilizing effect of the third chain, the remaining two dragged cruelly on his cock and nipple. The absence of the ring on the left side of his chest felt strange. Bucky was disorientingly off-balance as he walked quickly behind Rollins, trying to mitigate the amount of pull on the chains. Rollins seemed to find his attempts amusing, picking up his own pace until he was nearly running, Bucky leashed behind him like some kind of show-pony.

The air stung the open wound on his chest as it rushed past, but it was nothing compared to the pain in his cock. The burning where the ring pulled was like wildfire, flaming fast and hot. It spread back through his pelvis and down his legs, an overwhelming, all-consuming pain that had him gasping and choking as he ran. _No, no, no_ , he reminded himself viciously. He couldn’t let Rollins know, couldn’t break his cover, but _fuck_ it hurt.

It didn’t seem to matter anyway. Rollins, the fucker, was laughing loudly enough that Bucky’s outburst had gone unnoticed once again. He had gotten lucky twice. Bucky really didn’t want to push his luck for a third time.

Finally, after an agonizing eternity of following Rollins down endless hallways and tearing the insides of his own cheeks to shreds with his teeth, they reached their destination. Rollins stopped in front of an unmarked door, no more remarkable than any of the handful that they’d passed. He twisted the knob and pushed it open, pulling on the leash for Bucky to follow.

“Brought you a present,” Rollins said with a grin as the door closed behind them and Bucky got his first look at another person he had hoped to never see again.

Brock Rumlow stood in front of him. Burned and scarred, but recognizable all the same. Bucky took a bit of solace in the fact that it looked like half of Rumlow’s face had melted off. He hoped it had fucking hurt.

“Jack, you shouldn’t have,” Rumlow said delightedly, taking the leash from Rollins. His voice was different than Bucky remembered; raspy and hoarse, like a smoker with a pack-a-day habit. In retrospect, Bucky should have been paying more attention to the cues of Rumlow’s body instead of his ruined face. As it was, he was taken entirely off guard when the next words out of Rumlow’s mouth were, “Nice to see you Bucky.”

Maybe working with the Avengers had made Bucky slow, or maybe he’d just forgotten exactly what Hydra was capable of. Either way, in the seconds it took him to realize that something was very, _very_ wrong, Rumlow yanked him forward with the leash as Rollins got behind him. Bucky felt the familiar shape of a gun press up against the base of his skull.

“You can drop the act,” Rumlow said as he twisted the chains around his hand, forcing Bucky closer to him. Rollins followed, the cold metal never leaving Bucky’s skin. 

Bucky weighed his options, but the leash in Rumlow’s hand and the gun jammed into his neck didn’t leave him many. He was pretty sure that as tough as his body was, even he couldn’t survive a bullet to the brainstem. He glared at Rumlow, dropping the vacant stare of the Winter Soldier.

“Rumlow,” he gritted out, his voice muffled by the mask.

“There you are,” Rumlow crowed. The smug look on his face had Bucky’s metal fist clenching so hard he could hear the metal creaking.

Bucky’s brain was in overdrive. He thought he might remember this room, but his memories were hazy; blurred outlines and distorted voices. It was empty, the walls and floor made of bare concrete. The only things of note were the door they’d entered through and a drain in the middle of the gently sloping floor. So nothing to use as a weapon then. It didn’t much matter; his best weapon was his arm. All he had to do was get Rumlow talking. If he could distract him for long enough, there’d inevitably be an opening. All it would take was one slip-up, a single second of Rollins loosening his grip on the gun, and Bucky could take him out and move on to Rumlow before he had a chance to draw his own weapon.

“How’d you know?” Bucky asked coldly.

“You think your side is the only one that knows how to spread a rumor?” With the hand holding the leash, Rumlow shook a finger back and forth at him, pulling agonizingly on Bucky’s abused flesh. “But before we talk about that…” He flashed a predatory smile. “You’ve got a phone call to make. What are you using to communicate with them?”

Bucky laughed, trying as hard as he could to sound aloof, unaffected. “What makes you think I’m talking to anyone?”

“Oh?” Rumlow raised his eyebrows. Only the unburned side of his face moved. “My mistake. I asked my guys to hold off on shooting the three Avengers they spotted spying on the building. You know snipers. So trigger-happy. But if you’re not working with them…”

Rumlow reached for his earpiece as Bucky said, “Wait!”

“That’s what I thought,” Rumlow said with an infuriatingly smug smile. “Now, like I said, I’ve got three of your friends in crosshairs, and all it’ll take is a signal from me or Jack for my guys to spread their brains on the street. I know you’re probably thinking, hey I’m fast enough to get to him before he can signal, and you’re probably right.” Rumlow shrugged nonchalantly. “But you’re not fast enough to get to both of us. So I’ll try my question again. How are you communicating?”

Bucky bit the inside of his cheek so hard he felt some of the tissue come away under his teeth. “Dermal implant. Behind my ear.”

“Fancy,” Rumlow remarked drily. “Now I’m gonna need you to call your team and let them know you’re about to go dark for a while. This whole thing is gonna take a little longer than expected, but everything’s going peachy keen.”

He paused and Bucky waited. A part of his mind was still cycling through escape plans and discarding a depressingly large number of them.

“Well, what the fuck are you waiting for?” Rumlow said, tugging on the leash. “I said _now_.”

Bucky chanced a quick look down as Rumlow talked. His chest on the left side was a bloody mess, and the right side was swollen and red around the nipple ring. The head of his cock was a deep, ugly purple, and bleeding sluggishly where the ring had torn partially through the sensitive skin. Looking at it made him feel sick.

He heard the faint rustle of the chains as Rumlow shifted the leash in his grasp. Bucky’s stomach turned at the thought of another hard pull, and he threw his hands up in the universal sign of surrender.

“Fine,” he said. “Fine, I’ll do it.” Revulsion washed over him at the thought of doing anything Rumlow said, but in this instance he didn’t have a choice. He wasn’t about to let Steve and Nat and Clint get shot. Besides, Bucky had taken worse and survived. He would survive this too.

Under Rumlow’s watchful eye, and with Rollins’ gun still jammed up against his skull, Bucky reached carefully for the implant behind his ear. He pressed down and tried to speak, but his mouth was dry, his tongue glued to the roof. He cleared his throat and tried again.

“Steve? Nat?” he said.

 _‘Bucky, oh thank God.'_ Steve’s voice on the line sounded relieved. _‘We were starting to worry. Are you okay? Are you in?’_

“Yeah,” Bucky said, his voice close to cracking. “Yeah, I got in, no problem. It went exactly like we thought it would. And I’m fine.”

_‘What’s your ETA on getting to the drive?’_

Bucky looked at Rumlow, who was still staring him down. One wrong move and Steve and the others would become three more names to add to Bucky’s kill list.

“It’s, uh… it’s gonna take a little longer than I thought. The building’s not quite like I remember it. I’m gonna have to turn off my comm unit for a little while though.”

 _‘I don’t-’_ Steve started in before Natasha interrupted him.

 _‘Whatever’s safest for you, Bucky,’_ she said forcefully. Bucky could practically see the glare she was probably giving Steve.

“Thanks,” Bucky said, and this time his voice did crack. For just a second he missed the cold impartiality of the Winter Soldier. It was harder to do this when all he could focus on was the fact that he might not hear Steve’s voice again for a very long time. “I gotta go now. Please, be safe you guys.”

There was silence on the other end of the line again as Bucky worked to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat. And then, _‘Buck?’_ Steve’s voice, soft and pitched low. _‘Is everything alright?’_

Bucky wanted to cry. He’d been doing a lot of that lately; his father was probably turning over in his grave. He took a deep breath and composed himself.

“Keep the light on for me, will ya Stevie?” With that, he let go of the implant, ending his transmission. He had thrown those last words out like a drowning man grasping for something to keep afloat. He could only hope that Steve would understand him.

“See?” Rumlow said. “Was that so hard?”

“Fuck you,” Bucky spat back.

Rumlow smiled at the insult. “You’ve got it backwards, but that’s okay. We’ll get you retrained soon enough.”

Bucky spit at him, the only act of defiance he could manage that wouldn’t risk his friend’s lives. Rumlow stood stock still, spittle running down his cheek. Slowly, he raised a hand to wipe it away, and when he looked at Bucky again, his face was manic.

“And to think,” Rumlow said, eyes glinting dangerously, “I was going to be nice about this.”

Rumlow whistled, a short, sharp sound, and immediately the door burst open as a handful of agents poured into the room. Some of their faces were familiar, some he was sure he’d never seen before. And they were all focused on him. Two of the agents grabbed his arms, wrenching them behind him and restraining them with something heavy and metal. Even though he knew he shouldn’t, Bucky’s first instinct was to fight, and he struggled to kick at the agents nearest to him, hoping to catch someone off guard with a foot to someplace delicate. He made contact with someone, his foot sinking into soft flesh as someone let out a groan of pain. He kicked out again blindly as multiple agents struggled to contain him.

The room was plunged temporarily into chaos as men shouted and swore while they fought him. Over it all, Bucky could hear Rumlow shouting orders. There were hands on him trying to hold him down, but he kicked free over and over again until suddenly there was a sharp, piercing pain that made him scream. His brain whited out; the pain in his chest was nothing, _nothing_ compared to his groin. Rumlow had yanked the leash with full strength, and _oh fuck_ the ring was going to tear through Bucky’s cock if he didn’t stop, and someone was making noise; a high-pitched keening sound that hurt his ears as tears streamed down his face, and _stop stop stop please!_

An agent behind him kicked the back of Bucky’s knees, forcing him forward and down onto the ground. Mercifully, miraculously, the change in position put some slack in the chain and Bucky could breathe again, could think again, even though his entire body was still on fire and his cock throbbed in great, pulsing waves that made him want to puke. Through the red haze in his mind he heard Rumlow say, ‘behind his ear’, and there was a flash of white-hot fire on his scalp and a blunt pressure. He could feel something hot and wet dripping onto his shoulder and soaking into his hair. _Blood_. They’d taken out Tony’s implant. Bucky didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or both.

“Go ahead, string ‘em up.” Rumlow again.

Bucky could feel agents clamping another set of restraints around his legs, forcing them into a bent position that made it impossible to stand. Someone hauled him up under the armpits to a kneeling position and the muscles in his shoulders screamed in protest. There was noise and movement around and above him. The heavy clanking of metal on metal, men talking, arguing, barking orders. He was being picked up, flipped over, and held above the ground as someone pulled at the eye-bolts on his hips and back, and Bucky suddenly remembered with muted horror exactly why this room had seemed familiar.

There were several heavy, metallic screeches, and then one by one the agents let go of him. Bucky stayed suspended in the air, hands behind his back and legs drawn up tight. He remembered this. They’d thrown heavy chains over the bars set into the ceiling and attached them to the bolts poking through Bucky’s skin. His entire body weight hung from four anchor points, driven into the bone to keep them from giving way.

It didn’t stop them from hurting though. As he swayed gently suspended by the chains, he tried desperately to find that place in his mind, the one he used to disappear to when he had to be the Soldier. Maybe he’d spent too long with Steve and the others. His body was meant for this pain, and the brief respite had only been him fooling himself. Either way, he couldn’t find it, couldn’t slip away from his body. Couldn’t ignore the grinding, crunching, screaming feeling of metal on bone. Blood dripped from the side of his head into his eyes and hair and onto the concrete floor. The bolts were held tight in bone, but still they tore through soft tissue indiscriminately, and blood dribbled down his hips, pooled on his back, trickled from his cock and nipple as gravity pulled at the leash the same way Rumlow had. 

Someone grabbed his head and wrenched his neck, forcing him to look up and into their eyes. “Now don’t go passing out on me,” Rumlow said, patting Bucky’s cheek forcefully. “We still have so much to get to.”

Bucky blinked hard, blood drying tacky in the corners of his eyes.

“There you are,” Rumlow grinned at him, all hard lines and teeth. His eyes roved over Bucky’s hanging form looking pleased with his work. “Imagine,” he said to Bucky, as casually as if he was talking about the weather. “All of this for something so tiny.”

Rumlow fished into one of his pockets and then flashed something small and black in front of Bucky’s face. Bucky struggled to get his eyes to focus, his vision blurring and shifting. Rumlow held the object between two fingers, watching Bucky’s face with amusement as he finally realized what it was.

“This is what you came here for, right?” Rumlow tucked the USB drive back into his pocket. “You look surprised. You know the best rumors always have a grain of truth to them. And besides,” he patted Bucky’s face again, “at least now you know that even though you failed, this whole thing wasn’t _entirely_ pointless.”

Bucky wanted to punch Rumlow with his metal fist until his face resembled raw hamburger meat. He wanted to scream at him. He wanted to do anything but hang there, helpless.

“Aw, don’t worry,” Rumlow told him with mocking reassurance. “When I get back, maybe I’ll read the list to you while you suck my cock.” He let go of Bucky’s head and stepped away. “And just in case you’re thinking of doing anything _unwise_ , Jack is staying here to keep an eye on you. And your friends.” He winked to someone standing behind Bucky. “Keep ‘em warm for me?”

Bucky watched as Rumlow walked away, hatred and vitriol consuming him as much as the pain did. There were men all around him again; he could see their legs and feet as they gathered close. Bucky was shaking, the chains swaying; his body remembered this. The agents were talking over him, laughing, and Bucky’s muscles tensed for what he knew was coming.

An agent grabbed Bucky’s head like Rumlow had and yanked it upward. His other hand pried Bucky’s jaw open before jamming thick fingers into his mouth. Bucky bit down hard, growling deep in his chest like a wild animal.

”Motherfucker!” the man shouted, yanking his fingers away.

Bucky had a brief moment of victory before he was slapped across the face with savage strength. The blow rattled his skull. His ears rang as he felt something hard on his tongue. There was blood in his mouth, and when he spit it out, a piece of tooth went with it.

The hand on his jaw tightened painfully. “Bite again,” the man said, “and I’ll rip out every tooth in your goddamn head.”

He stuck his fingers back in Bucky’s mouth to test his compliance. This time, Bucky didn’t bite. Satisfied, the agent withdrew his hand and fumbled with his belt buckle. When he slid his pants down his thighs, Bucky saw that he was already hard and dripping. He forced Bucky’s head up further, twisting his neck until Bucky’s face was level with the man’s cock. And then, without warning, the man forced his cock into Bucky’s mouth.

The man pushed in hard and fast, stretching Bucky’s lips over his cock so quickly he felt them split. Bucky’s throat seized around the intrusion as the man bumped up against the back of his throat. He choked, saliva dripping down his chin as the man above him moaned and started to thrust. His movements were fast, brutal, leaving no time for Bucky to breathe. The man pulled his cock almost all the way out and then rammed back in, burying Bucky’s nose in the wiry hair at the base of his cock.

Every thrust made the chains sway harder, and his bones were going to burst through his skin if it didn’t stop, Bucky was sure of it. Someone else grabbed him from behind, stopping the wild swinging of the chains. Someone grabbed his ass, sinking sharp fingernails into his skin as they pulled his cheeks apart and exposed his hole. Bucky heard a guttural sound, and then something warm dripped down his ass. He felt hysterical laughter bubble up deep in his chest and get lost in his choking as he struggled to breathe around the cock in his throat. They’d spit on him.

Something hard, cold, and blunt nudged at his hole. Above him somebody laughed, and the pressure on his hole increased, stretching and pushing, until the tip of it slipped in. Bucky moaned brokenly, the sound muffled by the cock in his mouth. Another hard shove and the object was pushed in further. It was splitting him open and he cried out, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes as it sank deeper into him. He was being torn apart from the inside out, ripped in half, his blood dripping onto the concrete, as men laughed and jeered.

The man in his mouth suddenly gripped his hair painfully, ripping it out by the roots, as he rammed his cock down Bucky’s throat in fast, desperate strokes. Bucky heard a grunt, and then the man’s cock was pulsing, filling Bucky’s throat as he came. Bucky gagged, hot, sticky come bubbling up his throat and spilling from the corners of his lips. He struggled to breath, coughing uncontrollably as he tried to inhale and only succeeding in aspirating droplets. His nose and eyes ran, snot and tears collecting under his chin with saliva and come, all of it dripping to the floor below.

Finally the man pulled out, and Bucky took in great gasping breaths, trying to fill his lungs without coughing. The object in his ass was thrust in so far that Bucky felt something deep inside tear with a splitting, screeching agony. Someone grasped the object and pulled it out, and Bucky felt hot blood trickle down his thighs as his hole fluttered in the cold air of the room. Before he had a chance to process what was happening, one of the agents grabbed Bucky’s ass and pulled him toward them. A hard cock was lined up with his entrance and then the man was pushing in, Bucky’s abused muscles screaming in protest.

A broken wail started deep in his chest, cut off as another cock was forced into his mouth. This one was thinner than the one before, but longer, and he gagged around it immediately. The chains pulled at him, his bones aching as the two men stuffed him full from either end, thrusting into him as he bounced back and forth helplessly.

He’d counted a half dozen when they first entered the room, but there must have been at least a thousand of them. Bucky lost count of the men who used him. They filled his mouth and his throat, laughed as he choked on their cocks, and groaned in delight when the muscles in his ass spasmed around them. They came in him and on him, each man’s come joining the steady drip to the floor. He hung there, lost somewhere in that liminal space between living and dying, able to do neither and desperately wishing for both. At some point he tried to concentrate on something good; on the way Steve’s mouth had felt on his last night, the warmth of Steve’s hand on his, the rumble of Steve’s voice in his ear. But the minute he did he knew it wasn’t right. Steve didn’t belong here, could never stand where these men stood. Nothing good was ever meant to be in this room.

He thought he might have heard the squawk of a radio at some point, or maybe he’d imagined it. It wasn’t like it made a difference. He was never leaving here. This was how he would exist from now until he died. A piece of meat, strung up and on display; a thing to be used and abused until he was so broken he wouldn’t even be good for a quick fuck. Maybe then they’d finally let him rest.

Maybe he slept, though how he could sleep in this situation was beyond him. All Bucky knew was that he was suddenly blinking awake, or maybe just aware. He was still hanging, but there were no hands on him, his mouth and his ass blessedly untouched. All around him there were voices in various states of alarm. He heard a door open and boots slapping against the ground as men ran. Bucky wanted to look, but he couldn’t get his neck to work right.

In one of life’s terrible twists, he got his wish. Someone grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up. “Don’t even think about fucking moving,” Rollins hissed at him. Bucky could hear noise coming through Rollins’ earpiece. Rollins let go of Bucky’s hair and turned and ran, tailing the rest of the men out of the room.

The door banged shut behind him and the room was abruptly plunged into silence. Bucky’s ears rang with the sudden absence of noise, and hysterical laughter bubbled up through him once again. He was alone. They’d left. _He’d survived_.

He could hear something else now. His laughter subsided to hiccupping giggles as he listened to a distant _pop pop pop_. His brain was sluggish, so it took him an embarrassingly long time to realize that he was listening to gunfire. _A lot_ of gunfire. And it was getting closer, the little popping sounds slowly getting louder.

 _Steve_.

The desperate thought welled up from deep inside him, growing and expanding, until it was all he could think about. Steve. Natasha. Clint. It had to be. If he’d had tears left he would’ve cried. Steve had heard him and _understood_ and now he was here and…

 _Fuck_. If Steve was here, then it was him and his shield against hordes of Hydra agents. Even with Natasha and Clint, there were still too many. By the time Tony and Bruce made it from the Tower it might be too late, so they couldn’t count on backup. An awful vision flashed in front of his eyes; Steve, Natasha, and Clint, broken and bloodied, eyes open and staring at nothing.

 _Well, fuck that_.

Bucky had thought he had nothing left. He was wrong. A sudden rush of adrenaline flooded him, tapping into the last bit of his strength. If he strained his wrists, he could just barely grasp the chain attached to the anchor point in his neck. He reached, his tendons screaming and joints popping, and wrapped both hands around the chain. A rasping, grating sound tore itself from his bruised throat as he pulled himself up the chain, inch by inch, raising his upper half. His legs were bound in such a way that he couldn’t do anything about the chains attached to his hips or his back. 

He pulled himself up until his arms were trembling so badly he thought they might give out. For a moment he hung there, suspended above the floor, contemplating just how much pain he was about to be in. _Please_ , he prayed, eyes scrunched shut, _please, please, please_. He didn’t even know what he was asking for; all he knew was that he desperately needed this to work. But then again, what was the worst that could happen?

 _His spine getting ripped out, for one._

He took a deep breath, and before he could talk himself out of it, let go of the chain.

His upper body dropped, and just like he’d predicted, between the men swinging him back and forth, slowly rocking the anchors in his bone, and the sudden drop of half his body weight, the bolt at the base of his neck tore loose.

Bucky screamed. There was no controlling the noise, no tempering it. He screamed, the sound raw and primal and ripped from his throat as blood poured from his neck. His upper body continued to fall and his face smashed into the ground. He felt, rather than heard, his nose crack as it broke, the pain stabbing behind his eyelids infinitesimally small compared to the pain in his neck. The drop did more than break his nose, the change in weight distribution left the other anchors pulling harder than they were meant to. There was a horrible grinding sensation in his bones as the anchors worked loose. Bucky took as deep a breath as he could, and still it came out short and gasping. He squeezed his eyes shut, tensed his muscles, and threw himself backwards as hard as he could.

It was slower this time, but no less agonizing, as the bolts pulled loose from his body and ripped through his skin. When the last one gave out, he dropped completely to the floor and lay there gasping. Tears streamed from his eyes as blood clogged his nose. For the first few minutes he lay there, all he could do was concentrate on breathing and trying not to pass out. The pain was beyond describing. Transcendent. He had no awareness of his body, its individual parts, beyond being one giant, massive knot of hurt.

Eventually, the continuing gunfire pulled him out of his stupor. He could hear men shouting now too, running back and forth down the hallway. Bucky was still shackled, but compared to the bolts, it was nothing. They’d used a weak metal, fine for a normal person, but not for him. They’d probably been relying on the chains to hold him. Their mistake.

Bucky braced himself against the ground, pulling his arms apart as hard as he could. The restraints around his wrists creaked and screeched in protest. Bucky took a deep breath and did it again, and again, until the metal reached its breaking point, flying into separate pieces that hit the floor with a loud _clang_. With his hands free, he could finally flip himself over, which he did, grateful beyond belief to not be lying in a puddle of spit and blood and come.

He made short work of the restraints on his legs, his strength aided by the adrenaline still coursing through his veins. The crash, when it came, would be spectacular, but now wasn’t the time to worry about that. He focused all he had on standing up.

Getting his feet under him was a lesson in agony. Parts of his legs were numb, and he felt shockingly unstable, like his spine was a pile of poorly stacked blocks. One bad poke and the entire thing would collapse. His left foot wasn’t working correctly, turning his gait into an awkward shuffle that did nothing to help the pressure on his spine. He dragged himself to the door and pushed it open, leaving bloody footprints in his wake.

The men he’d heard before seemed to be gone. The hallway was empty, an emergency light near the ceiling flashing red every few seconds. The gunfire was louder now, and as Bucky looked to his left, trying to pinpoint the direction the noise was coming from, an explosion rocked the building. Bucky grabbed hold of the doorframe to steady himself, watching as the hallway shook and settled, dust falling gently to the ground.

To the left it was then. _Please let it be Steve._

From the opposite direction, his ears picked up the sound of boots on concrete. A single pair. A person by themselves then. Bucky suppressed a bloody grin. Absolutely perfect. He ducked back into the room, leaving the door open just a crack, just enough to see when the person ran by.

The agent passed the room precisely at the time that Bucky had estimated, and it was nothing for Bucky to fling out his metal arm to clothesline the unsuspecting man. His running momentum slammed his windpipe hard against the unyielding metal of Bucky’s arm, and he dropped to the ground, confused and disoriented. Bucky kicked him in the temple with the side of his bare foot, hard enough for the crack of his skull to echo off the walls as the man went limp. Bucky dropped to his knees and rifled through the agent’s belongings, relieving him of his rifle and a small but wickedly pointed knife. It was just a shame that the man was so small. Bucky really would have liked to take his clothes as well, but he’d done worse things than fight naked.

Gripping the knife handle between his teeth and looking down the sights of the rifle, Bucky felt more himself than he had in months. And in some ways, maybe Hydra had it right after all. Maybe this was what he was. Bloody, bruised, and battle-frantic; more a monster than a man.

Well, he hoped they liked what they’d made out of him, because he was more than happy to return the favor.

Bucky made his way through the twisting halls as fast as he could with a bum foot. The march through these same hallways with Rollins felt like lifetimes ago, and it was hard to remember all the twists and turns they’d taken. He followed the sounds of fighting, and as he got closer he saw more evidence of recent battles. He passed agents slumped against the wall or laid out on the ground, bullet holes in their foreheads and their brains a pink halo behind them. Once or twice he passed a man still clinging to life, and he quickly relieved them of their suffering.

He was getting closer to the main bulk of the fighting, closer to finding Steve, to getting out, and then-

Bucky turned a corner and found himself face to ruined face with Brock Rumlow. In the second that it took Bucky’s hands to respond to his brain, Rumlow had just enough time to say, “What the fu-”, before Bucky clocked him in the side of the head with his rifle. The hit knocked Rumlow against the wall with a pained grunt. Bucky didn’t give him time to recover, dropping his rifle and getting Rumlow into a tight headlock, his metal arm across Rumlow’s throat. He put up a good fight, Bucky had to give him that. Rumlow kicked and scratched, his nails lashing out and digging into Bucky’s side, his feet stomping on Bucky’s before Bucky had had enough. He squeezed his arm tighter, cutting off Rumlow’s airflow. Rumlow’s hands flew up to his throat, trying in vain to pry Bucky’s arm away, but Bucky was a stone statue, immovable and obstinate.

“Where are they?” Bucky asked, letting up on Rumlow’s throat just enough to let him speak.

Rumlow’s voice was even raspier than before. “Fuck you,” he spat.

Bucky squeezed until Rumlow was choking for breath once more and asked again, _“Where are they?”_

“Doesn’t matter,” Rumlow gasped out. “More of us than there are of you. Just a matter of time.”

“Well that just isn’t gonna work for me,” Bucky said. He took a page from Rumlow’s team and kicked Rumlow in the back of the knees, letting him drop, his own weight suffocating him on Bucky’s arm. “So here’s an idea. You take me to them. You tell your men to stop shooting long enough for us to get out, and in return I won’t crush your trachea.”

“Not gonna happen,” Rumlow hissed before coughing uncontrollably. Bucky tensed his arm, pulling Rumlow in tighter. Waiting. _Waiting_. “Fine!” The word was wheezed out of Rumlow’s closed throat. “I’ll take you to your friends, just stop!”

Bucky let up and Rumlow took in great heaving gasps of air as he got his feet back under him. “Drop your weapons here,” Bucky commanded him. Bitterly, Rumlow dropped two guns, a knife, and a baton onto the ground. “Now point the way.”

Bucky followed Rumlow’s directions through the maze of hallways. True to his word, the sounds of fighting got louder and louder until Bucky started to make out individual voices. Agents’ shouting to be heard over the pop of guns, and another voice, heart-breakingly familiar, shouting orders and encouragement.

Bucky’s feet moved faster at the sound of Steve’s voice. Rumlow struggled to keep up with him, and when he faltered, Bucky simply dragged him.

“Don’t know why you’re bothering,” Rumlow rasped at him.

“Shut up,” Bucky told him, his focus single-minded and narrowed down to nothing but _Steve Steve Steve._

“Look at yourself,” Rumlow continued like he hadn’t heard him. “Look how you let us use you. It’s all over your face, your body. It’s humiliating. They’ll be ashamed to let you be seen with them.”

And maybe before Bucky would have listened. Maybe before he would have stopped, let Rumlow’s words sink into him, worming their way through his brain until they ate him alive. But he’d shown them. Bucky had let them _see_ and they hadn’t hated him. They hadn’t been disgusted or embarrassed. They’d opened their arms to him and shown him love and acceptance.

“I’ll take my chances. Besides,” Bucky paused. “It won’t be halfway as embarrassing as being seen with someone like you.”

They turned a corner and they were _there_. The hallway was wider here, more of a lobby than anything, with several doors open and hanging off their hinges. Smoke filled the air, floating over top of everything, blocking the fluorescent lights, and casting everything into an otherworldly light. Muzzle flashes popped in front of Bucky’s eyes as a group of agents, sheltering behind a makeshift barricade returned gunfire with a black blur that Bucky knew had to be Natasha. From the corner of his eye, Bucky saw something come spinning through the air. Steve’s shield hit one of the agents, knocking him back against the wall so hard his head left a dent in the plaster.

“Tell them, _now_ ,” Bucky commanded Rumlow.

“Stop!” Rumlow’s voice, hoarse as it was, echoed through the room.

Abruptly everything stopped. The agents lowered their guns, looking at Rumlow in confusion, and then horror when they saw their boss’ situation. Bucky saw Steve’s shield bounce off the far wall before a large hand reached out to catch it. Bucky _knew_ that hand. Bucky _loved_ that hand. Steve and Natasha paused their fight as well as Clint materialized beside them. Bucky could feel Steve’s eyes on him, could see the horror on his face at how Bucky must look, but he didn’t care. He was just happy to see Steve.

“You’re not done,” Bucky nudged Rumlow, none too friendly.

“Don’t shoot,” Rumlow told his agents, who looked even more confused than they already had. “Let them go.”

There was a clamor as the men shouted their disagreement and Rumlow screamed to be heard. “Shut up, you idiots! Follow the fucking orders!”

Bucky didn’t think much of leadership through fear, but it seemed to work for Rumlow as his men grew quiet and lowered their weapons. Steve, Natasha, and Clint approached cautiously, weapons drawn and pointed at Rumlow. Steve held his shield out, covering them as they went.

“Now get us out of here,” Bucky said.

They went at a run, or as much of one as Bucky could handle. He could feel Steve’s eyes on him, could practically hear the questions spilling from his mouth. But Steve was a soldier first, and he knew that mission success came before everything else.

Finally, Rumlow pointed them through a door that opened into bright sunlight. After the smoky interior of the building and flashing alarms, Bucky’s eyes had trouble adjusting. They spilled out onto the street, one that was suspiciously clear of civilians. Clint must have evacuated them after all. There was a black van parked haphazardly in front of the building, as if whoever had been driving it had bailed out quickly. Natasha took the driver’s seat, revving the engine, while Clint clambered into the passenger side.

Bucky stopped, Steve beside him as the two of them stared at Rumlow, whose face had turned an ugly shade of purple during their mad dash.

“What should I do with him?” Bucky asked.

If looks could kill, Rumlow would be dead a hundred times over from the force of Steve’s glare. Bucky wasn’t sure he’d ever seen that much pure, unbridled hatred in Steve’s eyes. The look didn’t suit him at all.

“It’s your choice, Buck,” Steve said in a tone that very much implied what he thought that choice should be.

Bucky paused, considering, and then in a move he was sure he’d kick himself for later, he let go of Rumlow’s throat. Bucky gave his back a solid push and Rumlow fell to the ground, gasping for air. His throat was ringed black and purple with bruises.

“Fuck off,” Bucky told him, before turning back to Steve.

With one last solid death-glare at the man gasping on the ground, Steve helped Bucky into the van and climbed in beside him before slamming the door shut. Natasha put the pedal to the floor and they burned rubber on their way out. Bucky watched in the rearview mirror as Rumlow sat up. He cut a sad figure, broken and beaten.

“Why the fuck’d you let him go?” Clint twisted around in his seat.

Bucky took one last look at the rearview mirror and Rumlow rapidly shrinking in the distance. “Because I’m not like them,” he said quietly. “And besides,” Bucky said as he held out a hand, bruised and sticky with dried blood to reveal the USB drive he’d swiped from Rumlow’s pocket. “We’ve got an organization to bring down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the story!


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